Political Quotes

“when we had a problem with the THAAD program, the Members of Congress in both committees, the Committee on Appropriations and the authorization committee, from both sides came together and they said, we do not want to fund programs that do not work; we do not want companies making big bucks and not being held accountable. So what did we do? My friend and my leader up there, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spence), working with the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), with the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis), and working with the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha), told the Lockheed Martin Company, if you do not get your act together and straighten out the quality control issues in the THAAD program, we are going to punish you. We have put language in the defense bill that said, every unsuccessful intercept would cost them $10 million out of their corporate pockets, out of their profits, and that allowed then Lockheed to get their program together and their act together and the THAAD program has now had three successful intercepts in a row. So when my colleague points out that we all want successful tests, he is right. I would just urge our colleagues on both sides of the aisle to overwhelmingly reject this amendment, support the request of President Clinton, support the request of Secretary Cohen, and allow this program to move to the next step.”